How do I get back my original file after performing all the Operations on the excel file using VBA? - vba

Question

Can Anyone tell me how do I undo all my changes to my workbook?
I have file excel1.xlsx and I have did sorting and many operations on the excel.xlsx using vba. But at the end I want the excel1.xlsx to be the same which was at the start. How do i Undo all my changes using vba?
activeworkbook.saved = True
I have found that it retains back all the contents as at the begginning but its not working.So is there any command where i can get back my original file after performing operations over it. Well yes
wb1.Sheets(1).Activate
ActiveWorkbook.Close savechanges:=False
It works but I dont want my workbooks to be closed it should be still opened. How do I make it? Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

In order to undo a sub routine, you can either choose not to save the file and just close it, or you have to write a special sub routine to save the state of the file, then restore the state (custom undo). This is one of the pains with sub routines is that they cannot be undone through normal undo. Most people, me including, will reccomend you work off a backup.
When making your custome undo routine, the big question is what do you need to save the state for? Saving all information about the file would be unnessesarily heavy, so it's good to know what you want to save.
Update:
This is a dirty way to backup the sheet if you only have 1 sheet of data. This is more of a proof of concept of one way to create a backup and not finalized perfect code. It just creates a backup copy of the currentsheet and when you'restore' you are simply deleting the original sheet and renaming the backup to what it used to be called. :p
How to test:
Put some data and value in your original sheet then run the Test() sub-routine!
Public backupSheet As Worksheet
Public originalSheet As Worksheet
Public originalSheetName As String
Sub CreateBackup()
Set originalSheet = Application.ActiveSheet
originalSheetName = originalSheet.Name
originalSheet.Copy After:=Sheets(Application.Worksheets.Count)
Set backupSheet = Application.ActiveSheet
backupSheet.Name = "backup"
originalSheet.Activate
End Sub
Sub RestoreBackup()
Application.DisplayAlerts = False
originalSheet.Delete
backupSheet.Name = originalSheetName
Application.DisplayAlerts = True
End Sub
Sub ZerosFromHell()
Range("A1:Z100").Select
Cells.Value = 0
End Sub
Sub Test()
Call CreateBackup
Call ZerosFromHell
MsgBox "look at all those darn 0s!"
Call RestoreBackup
End Sub

Answer 2

Short answer: you can't. Sorry.
Changes you make to your sheet using VBA cannot be undone at the click of a button or with a single, standard VBA statement.
The right thing to do would seem to be: do your VBA-driven work on a copy of the sheet, and delete/don't save this copy if you don't want to keep the changes (and reopen the original if you need to do so). But from your question, it sounds like you don't want to do that.
Your only alternative is then to write your own VBA procedure that backtracks all the changes you've done. Depending on what operations you performed, reversing them could be a ridiculously complicated thing to do, compared to just closing without saving and re-opening. But if you insist, by all means, knock yourself out!

Answer 3

Save a copy of the original workbook prior to running your macro. using the .SaveAs method at the beggining of the sub routine.
Run the VBA macro routine in the original workbook.
Now have a second macro "Undo VBA changes" that opens the workbook copy from step (1) , closes the workbook that ran the macro in Step (2) and calls the .SaveAs method again overwriting the existing workbook from step (2).
Note:
In order to get this UndoMacro to work you will need to put it in an Addin or a seperate workbook (an addin is cleaner). This will allow you to run the .SaveAs method and overwrite teh original workbook from Step (2) which will at this point have been closed to prevent an VBA runtime error message occuring.

Answer 4

If all of your data is cleanly organized, this works pretty well. Much like the OP, I needed to go back to the original state of an Excel file, and didn't want to have to re-load the original (it takes about 25 seconds to load, due to aged infrastructure, and slow PCs).
What I did was to copy all of the data into a variant array, do all of my processing to the workbook, then write back the variant array to the Excel file (data is on a worksheet called "Data", and starts at Row 2, and uses columns A through Z). While this uses a bit of RAM, the reading/writing is nearly instantaneous. Relevant code:
Dim varDataArray As Variant, wb As Workbook, ws As Worksheet, lngEndRow as Long
Set wb = ThisWorkbook
Set ws = ThisWorkbook.Worksheets("Data")
With ws
' This simply finds the last row with data
lngEndRow = .Cells.Find("*", [A1], , , xlByRows, xlPrevious).Row
' This reads all cell data from A2 to Z###, where ### is the last row
varDataArray = .Range("A2:Z" & lngNumberOfRows).Value
... do things ...
' This writes all the data back to Excel
' 26 is the numeric column equivalent to "Z"
.Range("A2").Resize(lngEndRow, 26) = varDataArray
End With